Forget Borat and his pinot noir with pooch; gold medal-winning Alexander Vineyard wine from Martinborough will soon be gracing the best tables in Kazakhstan.
Vineyard owner Michael Finucane said the first shipment of their pinot noir is set for airfreight to the remote Central Asian republic, which possibly makes the export-geared
and family-run company the only vineyard to do so in New Zealand.
"We are delighted to add to our overseas markets and I'm sure exporting to the Republic of Kazakhstan must be a first for Martinborough, if not for New Zealand," he said.
Most of the vineyard's tiny production of just 1000 cases a year is sent overseas, Mr Finucane said, mainly to Japan, Russia, Canada, the USA and Britain, and new plantings will soon be undertaken to meet growing international demand.
The 40 cases of wine destined for Almaty come from a 2005 pinot noir vintage that won a Bragato Wine Awards 2006 gold medal and scored five stars in the prestigious Australasian magazine Winestate.
Mr Finucane says Kazakhstanis are "obviously more sophisticated" than their fictional celluloid antihero, Borat, created and played by British comedian, writer and actor Sacha Baron Cohen.
"He is known for his outrageous remarks like "Is good with dog?" but we look forward to sending more wine to them to enjoy with their more traditional foods lamb and beef."
Mr Finucane is a chartered surveyor who shifted in 1996 from Britain with his wife Roz, the Alexander Vineyard winemaker, after taking up shares in the company when the couple decided on a change of career and location.
"Roz was working as a clinical psychologist and I was working in a company with 550 employees in the UK and 200 in Europe. We wanted a change so we moved 12,000 miles and bought a vineyard."
The couple bought out their business partners and took over the vineyard in 2001 where they now live with their two daughters. He said the despatch to Almaty in Kazakhstan brings to seven the number of export markets the vineyard now serves after having their harvest devastated last year in November frosts.
"We lost 96 per cent of the harvest but we are recovering now and the kind early summer this year gave us a really good fruit-set, so things are looking far better now and we will have the new plantings in soon."
